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Chinese bloggers reach 17 million mark

The number of bloggers in China has now topped the 17 million mark, and 34 million have signed up for blog accounts, according to a recent survey.

The research, by the China Internet Network Information Centre, also revealed that 75 million people read blogs on a regular basis in China, more than half of the 123 million internet users in the country.

Blog search site Technorati is currently tracking some 56.3 million blogs worldwide, so China’s bloggers represent almost a third of that total, and the numbers are growing rapidly. Chinese-language blogs make up some seven per cent of Technorati’s most popular blogs.

Around half of that 17 million are described as ‘active’ by the CNNIC; active blogs being those that are updated at least once a month. This figure is expected to reach 10 million by the end of 2006.

As the figures show, blogs have become very popular in China within a short space of time, with the number of bloggers increasing at a rate that is three times faster than the rise in internet users. There are 30 times more bloggers in China this year than there were in 2002.

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